


The Little Arrow and the Dread Wolf

by lirael



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Dalish, Dreams, Elves, F/M, Fade Sex, Fade Tongue, Heartbreak, Hot Broody Elf Sex, Hot Sex, Love, Lust, Sad Ending, Shameless Smut, Smut, Star-crossed love, Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2018-03-15 21:25:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3462605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirael/pseuds/lirael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How different the tale feels when it is lived; how rapturous, how inevitably painful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Second DAI playthrough, first Solasmance. I HATED that guy on my first game, and...look at where we are today. I know it's going to end badly, but I just can't help myself. Spoilers ahoy! Most (all?) of this will take place from Solas's perspective, so post-credits revelatory info is a given.  
> Covering the events up until Fadetongue quickly in the first chapter so it doesn't take too long to get to the smut. I LOVED [Maizzy's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Maizzy/pseuds/Maizzy) take on Solas freaking and magically knocking the Inquisitor asleep prior to the first fateful Fade Kiss in [Wander Silent](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3282509/chapters/7161599), so I alluded to it here! Dalish phrases are cobbled together from the wikia.  
> Planning to write as I play through milestones! I hope you enjoy! :)

He was in a fix unlike quite anything he’d experienced in his long, long years, in dream and wakefulness. It served him right, he supposed, not that the acknowledgment offered solution or comfort.

He was already sliding down a dangerous path. Do as he might to slow the irresistible, inexorable gravity of mortals’ compulsion to bonds that would ultimately end in pain, he couldn’t deny their mutual attraction. But she was not for him, this bright, beautiful soul of living fire, this tragically unique, so-brief Dalish creature, who would live her mortal span of days shining brightly until her body failed and spirit abandoned all accessible realms of men and gods, leaving the world colder and darker for her loss. He would suffer from having known Mirien, already. He would feel her death as a wound if she passed from this realm 100 years from now, and he already cared far too much to evade agony if she was killed in battle tomorrow. But he need not bring her more hurt than the brief sting of rejection. Everything that she was, everything she had done and would do in service of correcting  _his_  poor judgment, the destruction he had wrought upon the world with his actions… No. To give in to his desire for her, to encourage her attention and allow her to develop feelings for him—it would distract her from her mission. And it would be unconscionably cruel to deceive her, if she lived, to leave her to sorrow when he left. 

He sighed heavily and leaned against the table in the center of the round room he’d taken as his residence at Skyhold. Mortals weren’t the only creatures prone to doom and disaster, he had long known. How  _like_  him to find himself in this predicament when, for once, he’d tried to set things right. And furthermore, behaved himself where she was concerned! It was the nature of a trickster: trouble and merry chaos followed in his wake. He could not help but to deceive and betray. A merry bard’s song it would make, The Inquisitor and The Apostate, the brightest elvhen star to shine in an age and the god whose deceit had brought about the downfall of her race.  _Fool that you are_ , he thought bitterly. “He who hunts alone,” The People had once called him, and he had told her “maybe.” He wasn’t strong enough to tell her no, he wanted her so badly.

“Solas?” Mirien's clear voice was soft in the high-ceilinged room.

“Inquisitor,” he answered, straightening to greet her. A silence stretched between them, which he was loathe to break. He had known she found him pleasing to look upon, in the way a woman admires a man, and he had done his own share of looking when he was reasonably certain no one else would notice. She had surprised him from the start, when he first saw her awake. The very  _life_  of her—an arrow flew from nowhere, striking a deathblow to the demon advancing on his position, and then she appeared, striding confidently into the clearing with bow held at the ready. A torrent of unearthly power flowed through her when he took her hand and held it to the rift, and she took her newfound ability in stride as if such miracles were a daily occurrence. Almost comically small in comparison to Cassandra’s muscled height and Varric’s breadth, she strode to the fore and led them all up the demon-ravaged mountain as if the humans’ mythical Maker had indeed ordained her to lead armies of the faithful. A small spark of hope bloomed in Solas as he watched the little woman with the quick amber eyes shoot down demons before they ever saw her coming, and then…she did it! With a wave of her hand she closed the first rift, single-handedly stopped the tide of spirits pulled violently and unwillingly into this realm by Corypheus’s brutality. She had collapsed, exhausted, on the battlefield. When she woke again for the second time since she emerged impossibly from the Fade, she agreed to join the motley group—mostly made up of humans—who intended to seal the mighty Breach in the sky, becoming the only true possibility of hope in a delusionally hopeful (and most likely doomed) world. 

“Solas,” she repeated, moving closer, “you said you needed some time to think. And it’s  _been_  some time since we last spoke, so…" She blinked at him, honey-hued eyes inviting. "I’ve been wondering what you thought.”

“Ah,” he said eloquently. “Well. I’m afraid I still think it’s an ill-considered idea.”

“ _Solas_.” She was exasperated. She was adorable when she was exasperated. She was beautiful when she was concentrating in combat, scrambling effortlessly to high ground to aim at her foes, leaping lightly away from danger. She was owl-eyed and inviting in the firelight at camp, laughing at the dwarf’s jokes. Her laughter stirred something long-dormant in Solas’s breast, a hunger to which he’d thought himself immune. The more often he looked at her face, the less the stark purple markings above her eyes appeared a grotesque parody of the symbol of servitude to Mythal in his sight; the branching lines were merely a part of her distinctive, magnetic features. He couldn't help but notice her loveliness. He watched her at Haven. When they weren’t traveling, she went out into the fields surrounding the village and brought back game each day. He had smiled to himself, noticing the odd paths she cut around the village, ignoring the humans’ roads. She was delightful. 

And then she did it. 

In a few short months she managed to amass some significant power for the fledgling Inquisition. She insisted on recruiting the rebel mages of Redcliffe in aid of sealing the Breach, rather than relying on a mob of religious zealots who derived their powers from a substance unnatural to themselves. She reported, the Tevinter mage colorfully confirmed, and Solas believed, that she had been thrown into the future during the attempt and _still_  somehow managed to thwart Corypheus’s foregone victory in her absence. She sealed the Breach in the sky, she confronted the mad Darkspawn magister who had ripped it open, and she  _taunted_ him. She held Corypheus’s attention long enough to allow the townspeople to escape to safety, then buried herself and Haven under a mountain of snow.

As Haven disappeared, Solas felt numbly grim. The best hope of stopping Corypheus was likely lost. What use was there for feeling? Only when Mirien staggered to the edge of their makeshift camp, near-insensible from cold and exhaustion, did he realize the impossible pain he would endure when he lost her again. He watched her stand at the center of a crowd of humans, thin shoulders squared and big eyes set, as they sang to the god whose worship had destroyed her people’s history, and he felt for her what he had felt for neither mortal nor spirit before.

He gave her Tarasyl'an Te'las, which she called Skyhold. He watched the shemlen name her their Inquisitor, and watched as she accepted the duty in the name of the elves. It wasn’t entirely pleasant to observe, given his remembrance of the fates of the few other elves who had risen to lead humans in the days since the People quickened. He felt disgusted with himself. Such power, to set such events in motion. Such power, more power than any of these beings could imagine, but not enough—not _ever_ enough—to undo his mistakes or avoid their consequences.

Mirien came to him that day, sought him out in a secluded room. She batted her big golden eyes and asked to know more of him and, well…he had made yet another poor choice. She was so lovely; he wanted so much to share something wonderful with her. Suddenly he feared she might kiss him, and he might not be able to stop kissing her back, and…and. He’d dropped her into a deeper sleep than he’d even intended with a mild breath of compulsion—standing that close, she disrupted his focus—and leapt to catch her before she hit the ground. After a comically horrible journey to deliver her safely into her own bed while avoiding notice (interrupted by that Orlesian witch, Vivienne) he found her wandering the Fade. In her dream, standing before the human Chantry of Haven, she kissed him…and just as he’d feared awake, he wasn’t able to stop himself from kissing her back. 

For an eternal instant, the briefest taste of her, he had indulged himself. _Such a fool_. 

She’d confronted him upon waking, eager to repeat the experience in the physical realm, and she just _wouldn’t_ be discouraged. Helpless against her charm, he had asked for more time, unable to deny her outright. Three weeks had passed since that conversation, during which she had traveled away from Skyhold with other members of her Inner Circle (presumably leaving him alone to do the thinking he’d told her he required). It hadn’t helped. He still knew he couldn’t have her, still wanted her; he could still taste her though he willed himself to forget. And now she was back, demanding an answer.

“What are you so afraid of?” she asked. “I promise I won’t bite.”

 _Tell her it’s over_. _Tell her you don’t want her._ But when he opened his mouth, that’s not what came out.

“Ma da’assan, ma enansal. I am flattered, and you are beautiful. But this is not appropriate, lethallan. Dallying with me will only distract you from your duties and sully your reputation. I cannot—“

“No, _no_!” she broke in, cutting him off, “none of this halam'shivanas halla shit. If you don’t want to be with me, just tell me. Don’t dress it up in fine words as if you’re doing me a favor.”

“No, you misunderstand my intention,” he objected, startled by her vehemence. “I would like nothing more than to be with you.”

“Then why don’t you?” she asked plaintively. “Why do you turn me away, Solas?”

“Asha, ar…" He sighed, trying to find the words. "I don’t want to hurt you.”

She was incredulous. “You’re hurting me right now.”

“Mirien…” He didn’t know what to say. This was ludicrous. Here he stood, rejecting the mortal woman he longed to dream of, hoping against hope that this Dalish child would somehow save the living world from his blunder. Of all the chaos and pain he had caused recently, none struck him so deeply as her wounded eyes. “I am sorry. I have been alone for so long…”

“How do you endure it?" she asked, her bright eyes bruised. "I’ve never been this lonely before, and I hate it.”

“Lonely?" He was nonplussed. "I would be surprised if you’ve had a moment to yourself since you escaped from Haven. You are constantly surrounded by people.”

“Don’t play the fool, Solas. It doesn’t suit you. You know precisely how lonely I am here, an elf at the head of an army of the human faithful.”

“There are other elves in the Inquisition, lethallan," he objected after a shocked pause. "There are other Dalish here, more familiar with your customs than I. Better company for you than an aging apostate.”

Mirien arched an eyebrow at that, and stepped closer. “You don’t look aged to me, Hahren,” she said sardonically. “You look to me like a man in his prime. You could be one of the ancient elvhen of old, a man who will never quicken and die, for all I know.” 

He opened his mouth to retort, then stopped. At this distance he could see the terrible vulnerability dwelling behind her smile, the aching, honest loneliness she typically concealed with teasing. She took a shaky breath and looked up at him with naked eyes, her voice gone suddenly soft. Her gentle fingers found his forearm.

“Solas, I need you.”

She was so close. The smell of her, the tense nervous energy of her desire tingled over his skin. The Dread Wolf went very still, but his unlikely little pursuer had him cornered. He stood petrified lest he seize her and give her everything she was asking for, and more...and break her heart when he betrayed her, as he must. But she was closer now still, and there was no stopping the course of fate. Helpless as any mortal, he was swept away in the tide of chemical reaction, the burning drowning overwhelming inevitability of attraction and bonding unique to beings who lived their lives in physical flesh. And yet, he remained motionless, incapable of movement as she drew so slowly closer, an instant, an entire age. 

Tentatively, she brushed his side, placed one delicate hand against his chest. He felt her touch suddenly, impossibly, through his entire spine. Eyes closed, lips parted, she rubbed her cheek oh-so-softly against his jaw, shy, insistent, catlike—then her lips touched his neck and the last shred of resistant paralysis abandoned him to the flood of physicality. His erection was immediate, his hands around her hip and back, face buried in her sweet silky hair for a desperate heady breath before pulling her hard against his body, crushing her soft mouth to his own. She responded eagerly, clutching his shoulders and rising on tiptoe, opening her lips to taste him. “ _Fade tongue_ ,” the memory of her voice dashed through his thoughts and pulled his lips tight in a wicked grin, provoking a smile from her own open mouth, fierce expressions of joy contorting features into the sudden beasts they'd become, gladly devouring one another. He raked long fingers up into her hair, other hand roaming lower down the sway of her back, pressing, and—

With a load groan, the door to main hall swung open.

“— _I’ll_ say!” Dorian’s voice rang out, calling back to someone outside, “—ah,” he stopped short as he registered the two elves wrapped around each other in the center of the room. A heartbeat, a blink passed, and then Dorian regained his composure. “I see I should have taken the other set of stairs,” he said airily as the heavy door swung shut behind him. Mirien pulled away as the Tevinter mage sauntered across the room, the tips of her ears flushing red. As he mounted the steps, Dorian glanced back and waved a genial hand at the two of them. “As you were!”

Both Solas and Mirien stood dead still as the human mage’s footsteps ascended the stairs. As Dorian moved out of earshot, Solas made to apologize. 

“Lethallan, I-“

But he never got the chance to finish. Mirien burst out laughing, clapping a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. Solas couldn’t but smile back down into her conspiratorial eyes, shaking his head helplessly. 

“Well, you heard the man,” she said when she caught her breath, sidling closer. “I think we were somewhere around here-“ she continued, putting her arms around his neck and turning her face up to his.

“Oohhh no you don’t, my huntress,” Solas chided, gently disengaging himself from her grasp, his grin broadening as her lovely face fell into a pout. “You won’t snare me twice this day. We should both return to our duties. And I…well,” he couldn’t help but smile again. “You have given me something else to think on.”

Mirien's golden eyes flashed as if she would argue, but then she smiled. “Ma nuvenin,” she shrugged, the words sweeter from her throat than any Elvish words he’d yet heard spoken. He watched her hips sway as she walked to the door, marveling at her shape, at the way she moved, at the cruel irony of circumstance that would tempt him with her so. She stopped on her way out the door and, coquettish—no doubt influenced by Dorian—threw a sultry glance back over her shoulder. “Tel'abelas,” she said archly, and then she was gone.

“Ar felfen, lath nadas abelas,” he muttered into the emptiness of her absence. _You fool, Old Wolf. You_ ** _fool_** _._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those of you who have asked for more story, thank you! Sorry to take forever to get this second chapter to you. I hope the introduction of FADE SMUT helps make up for the wait! <3

He spoke to her again, obviously. He saw her almost every day, from afar if not near. But she was always near in his mind, try as he might to banish her features from his dreams. She could not help but be close, and he smelled her skin wherever she passed. The sight of the Commander’s eyes meeting hers in the hall…it incited a rage that took him by surprise. A RAGE. The like of which he’d not known in ages, over the barest of instances! A meeting of eyes, yellowy-brown on shining amber-gold. He wasn’t a young gods-damned man walking in flesh for the first time, but the Commander’s proximity to his Inquisitor, to say nothing of the man's admiring gaze, strained Solas’ blood to the edge of endurance.

He saw her always. In rest and wake, she wouldn’t leave him. How like and.. _unlike_ him, that the snare of love would trip the Dread Wolf. He held himself aloof as no man of mere flesh could have managed, and yet she intruded upon his thoughts. He watched her fight. He watched her think. He watched her all the time. The memory of her taste woke him, and intruded on his mind when he would sleep. He felt her eyes on him while they traveled. She sat beside him by the fire at night, closer, bolder than she’d been before. But there was never a chance for privacy, never a chance for further communication than heated glances…

Until weakness for her overcame him, and he visited her in dream.

It was one of the self-styled Freemen of the Dales, of all things, who struck her. She who was so quick, so elusive, who never flinched from facing demons—nearly ended by the stupid luck of a brutish idiot human looking to absolve his frustrations with violence. Solas saw her peril and threw up a barrier to protect her, but the blow still knocked her to the ground, senseless. Solas snarled in fury and boiled the man’s innards before he could raise his sword again, the resultant explosion spattering the Iron Bull with gore as he ran to protect the motionless Inquisitor from further attack. As Solas and the Tevinter wiped up the last of the battlefield with crackling bursts of magic, Bull stooped to lift Mirien, tiny in his massive arms, and poured a health potion down her throat. The Bull carried her back to the nearest camp, where the newly recruited Inquisition surgeon stitched her up and a half-rate Circle-trained healer cast a spell of hastened healing upon her before tucking her into a tent.

Solas remained apart for the remainder of the day, aloof from conversation, waiting until night fell. He shouldn’t do it, he knew. It was foolish, and selfish. He _wouldn’t_ do it, he told himself—but if he were to cross into the Fade right now, he knew his thoughts would take him to her.

“She’s going to be all right, you know.” It was Dorian. The man stood smirking at him from a few feet away, one hand resting on his hip.

“Excuse me?” Solas’s voice was cool.

“Lady Lavellan. Our fearless leader! The little elven woman, you know, with the tattoos?” Solas didn’t bother responding. “Oh, you _do_ have it bad, don’t you?” He made to peer into Solas’s averted eyes, earning a disgusted glare. The Tevinter mage laughed. “Have it your way,” he said airily, still chuckling as he turned to go. “It must be positively exhausting to be so _tortured_ about everything.”

 _You have no idea, friend_ , Solas thought as he watched the other man stroll off through the camp. The irritating mage had a point. Solas looked to the Inquisitor's tent, and suddenly realized that she wouldn’t be awake in time for dinner rations that night. He felt himself sitting by the fire without feeling her warmth nearby, the night empty of her laughter. The thought tore through him with a pang; leaving him lonely and aching. Suddenly he didn’t care about sense or consequence. He went to his bedroll and laid down, closed his eyes, and waited to drift into the Fade, to look for her.

********

It didn’t take long to find her, though he was a bit surprised (if gratified) by her apparent surroundings. Mirien was sitting on the desk in the center of his tower room at Skyhold, swinging her legs. It was nighttime, and her skin glowed warm in the torchlight. The walls were covered in the familiar bright paintings he had begun, but her mind had extended and ornamented them further, making them appear even more elaborate and colorful than they were in life. The floors above the room were quiet, unoccupied, and the roof had disappeared to leave the space open to the sky. The Inquisitor was uninjured, in her dream, and she wasn’t alone. Solas halted momentarily, arrested by the Inquisitor’s absorption with, well…him. She was smiling, flirtatious, engaged in animated conversation with a spirit wearing Solas’s own face and form.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” she accused, her lovely voice a throaty purr.

“Is that so?” Spirit-Solas countered, leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms. “I seem to recall seeing quite a lot of you lately.” His eyes traveled over her body before meeting her golden gaze. He smiled, and Mirien flushed, pleased; glanced down. The light in the room thrummed, ever so subtly, in time to her heartbeat.

Solas himself stood utterly bemused for a moment, watching. This was entirely normal, of course. Sexual encounters between mortals and spirits in the Fade were a nightly occurrence. Spirits of compassion, even of wisdom might take the guise of a would-be lover, influenced by the mind of the mortal in whose dreamscape they wandered. Most fool humans had no idea how they would suffer without the benevolence of the spirits they termed desire “demons,” whose fragile natures were so easily warped and twisted by contact with mortals outside of the safety of the Fade. Mortals who dreamed typically forgot or dismissed such trysts come morning—after all, it was just a dream!—unaware of such encounters’ contribution to their sanity and wellbeing. Solas was entirely aware of the necessity of these brief unions and would never begrudge a lover an erotic dream, but in truth, it had been long and long again since he had encountered anything resembling this.

Focused as she was on his doppelgänger, Mirien still hadn’t noticed his presence at the border of her dream. She glanced back up at Solas’s facsimile, rubbing one foot over the other. “You have,” she insisted. A little smile played over her lips, but her big eyes, again, were vulnerable. “I’m starting to fear that you don’t _want_ to kiss me again.”

“Banal, da’assan,” the Solas-seeming spirit replied, shaking his head. His eyes glinted with amusement. One long hand encircled her ankle, began to slide up toward her knee. “I do want to kiss you again, very much.” Mirien gasped softly, and the sound of that sweet soft intake of breath pushed the God of Rebellion past the point of caution. She was already dreaming of his face and body, without his interference. He had not the forbearance to stand idle and watch while a spirit wearing his face loved the woman he longed for, and at this instant he cared naught for the consequences. With a wave of his hand, he dispelled the spirit to another part of the Fade.

“Solas?” Mirien looked around in confusion as the spirit faded, but then her eyes found him, warming his skin with her gaze. “There you are!” She hopped off the table and moved toward him. Her smile lit the shadow in which he stood, dazzling his sight with her gladness.

Solas strode forward to meet her, dropping his staff (which vanished before it clattered to the floor). He noticed—with some amusement, and rather more carnal anticipation—that his tunic disappeared as her eyes moved over his torso, leaving him bare-chested. He did nothing to counter her vision. He was hungry for her desire; he wanted to rip her clothing away and press her bare flesh to his own. And then they collided—her arms around him, her lips on his, his tongue in her sweet, sweet mouth. He slid greedy hands over her hips to her ass, so tempting in that delightfully obscene excuse for an outfit she wore at Skyhold, and squeezed, pulling her hard against him. She gasped again, making him growl softly against her lips. With his height, his momentum, the force of command in his kiss, he maneuvered her backward across the room until her thighs touched the table, teasing with lips and tongue and touch. The buckles of her clothing were cold against his bare chest, but—hoisting her up onto the table—he burned within the warm embrace of her thighs. He pushed her onto her back and broke away from her kiss, looking down upon her with eyes glowing golden to match her own.

“Banal, ma vhenan-ara,” he whispered, running his thumb over her berry-stained lips. “I want much more than merely to kiss you.” She arched against the table as his fingers found the the attachments of her clothing. He unsnapped one buckle, then another, fingers searching for the third... Then—quite suddenly, in the manner of dreams—Mirien came to a shuddering climax, writhing beneath him and gasping his name. The name she knew him by—Solas, suddenly the sweetest name he had ever worn. He smiled tenderly as her body quieted, gathering her up to his chest as she slowly vanished from his arms, leaving the Fade for the quiet paralysis of dreamless sleep.

He found himself overwhelmed with a sudden barrage of emotion—pleasure, frustration—and thought for an instant he might weep, but did not, feeling more strongly than anything thankful for her continued existence. The lights in the room dimmed as Mirien disappeared from the space her mind had conjured into the Fade; the colors of the paintings on the walls grew duller.

“You love her,” came the spirit’s voice from a shadowed corner.

Solas sighed, heart heavy with the weight of emotion. “Yes, friend, I’m afraid I do.”

********

In the morning, when he saw her healthy and whole once more, striding gracefully into the camp clearing in search of breakfast, his relief made him foolish. Like a lovesick young elf barely into manhood, he couldn’t help but to catch her eye, smiling like an imbecile.

“Sleep well, Twigs? Feeling better?” the dwarf asked her.

“Yes, thank you, Varric, I did.”

Passing out of the clearing, Solas allowed himself to brush close past her body, to lean a bit nearer her beautiful face. “Pleasant dreams, I hope?”

The sight of her answering blush intruded upon his thoughts for the rest of the day.

********

He stayed far from her dreams over the next days, and saw her in waking only in the company of others. She behaved warmly toward him, but did not seek him out privately. He assumed that she had forgotten the dream. It was for the best, truly; a lovely little transient moment that passed away without pain, as his dalliance with the Inquisitor should. But he should have known better. Such uncomplicated simplicity simply could not exist between mortals; it was not the way of beings who lived in flesh and Fade.

A week and a day passed, then came a warm starlit night. Solas was grateful to reach his bedroll and slip into the shifting mists of the Fade; it had been a long and trying day.

He was walking in a long-ago forest when she found him. He stepped into a glade, reaching out to touch the bark of a sun-warmed tree, and suddenly she was there.

“Solas, ma’arlath!” she called gladly, swaying toward him with her willowy stride. “I’ve been looking for you!” She threw her arms around him, exuberant, soft lips touching his neck before he stopped her.

“Mirien!” he exclaimed, alarmed. He pulled her away with strong hands on her shoulders, examined her eyes. It was her, no doubt, no mere spirit masquerading in her form. “Why are you here? Is everything all right, ma da’assan?”

“Aha!” she cried, triumphant. “I’ve found you now, lethallin! Only you would deny me so after I’ve searched my dreams for you these many nights.” Her grin literally gave off light, painting the whole glade brighter. Solas stood dumbfounded, for an instant, and then laughed, delighted.

“You’ve searched for me, have you? There is no escaping you, my huntress. But tell me, how can you be so sure it is I to whom you speak? Walkers in the Fade wear many faces. I may be mere fantasy.”

She cocked a hip in response, one tattooed brow raised high. “Because only you, ma sa’lath, would stand around quizzing me about your authenticity while I ache for your touch. If you were fantasy, you would have ripped my clothes off by now.”

He laughed again, surprised and aroused, overcome with feeling for this odd little being who stood before him in the shifting landscape of the Fade. “And if I were to tear your clothes off, vixen, how then will you know?”

She grinned, irrepressible. “None of my fantasies have ever asked me such a question, for one. If you _are_ nothing but a figment of my imagination, I must say I’m a bit disappointed in myself. This meeting is a bit more…prosaic than I’d hoped.”

He sauntered closer, gazing down upon her with skeptically crossed arms. “Prosaic? Truly? You, no mage, have knowingly walked the Fade in search of a dreamer. You have actually _found_ the one you sought, you believe—such a feat!—and you are disappointed because I did not immediately ravish you?”

She blushed and glanced down, her bravado flagging slightly in the face of his directness, and his blood thrilled to the rush of color in her cheeks. But she recovered in the space of a heartbeat, challenge flashing in her eyes. “I know that was you, Solas’sa, the night after I was hurt. It was different from any dream I’ve had before, save one…the once. At Haven, when you kissed me. And then again last week, when, well..." She broke off, biting the inside of her lip. He waited, silent, to hear what she would say. After a long moment, she went on, frustrated. "I feel such a fool, that you have seen me so and then avoid me! Tell me, Solas…” She glanced down and back up once again, big eyes guarded. “Am I so unappealing?”

He did not laugh but moved closer still, tracing long fingers delicately along her hip. “No, ma vhenan’ara, rather the opposite. I am frightened, ma da’assan, to give you what you ask, that I may never deny you again.” He bent to kiss her then, voice husky as he spoke against her soft berry lips, “...but you tempt me beyond the limit of mortal endurance.”

She opened her soft mouth eagerly to his tongue, pressing against him as his hand traveled lower to smooth over her round little bottom, give it a slap and a squeeze as he’d longed to. He grinned fiercely against her gasp of surprise at the spank, then pulled her lower lip between his teeth to nip with a soft growl of satisfaction. He lifted her easily, her lithe body solid but weightless in the Fade as in water, and pressed her up against a suddenly convenient tree. His lips found the fast-pounding hollow of her throat as she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him tight against her warmth.

“Solas!” she gasped, alarmed, as he slid a deft hand under her bottom to support her, tasting the smooth skin of her neck as the fingers of his free hand found her breast, gently teasing her nipple through the fabric of her clothing. “Shem, seth," she panted, "it’s just…here, in a dream, it’s so fast!" she gasped, wriggling against him. “I’m afraid I’m going to…last time, when I came, I…I woke up! And...”

He laughed again now, a low, predatory rumble against her throat, fingers still languorously, mercilessly pulling at her nipple. “But I want to feel your body sing against mine, da’asha; I am greedy for your pleasure. Simply stay with me this time. There is no need to wake merely because you climax. Stay with me,” he continued, low in her ear, “and I will pleasure you again, and again. I will drive you wild with ecstasy before you wake.” And at the promise in his words, the thrill of his breath against her ear, she exploded into a nova of quaking light, shaking the glade into ephemerality with the force of her sensation. Solas grinned and gripped her tighter as she struggled to maintain her form in this shattering, shuddering detonation unique to beings of mortal flesh, setting suddenly much-sharper teeth against her shoulder to help her find her way back to him. He was well and truly ensnared in the mortal dance of doomed ecstasy, now; he would make her howl his name to the heavens before morning.

He pushed her harder, higher against the stone at her back as she coalesced into solidity with little flickers of bright feeling, her slender legs trembling around his hips. She was supported no longer against a tree, but a pale wall adorned with green-leaved vines—a long-crumbled palace of Elvhenan brought forth from oblivion by the beauty of Mirien’s small exquisite death and resurrection—but she noticed not. Her glorious golden eyes cared for nothing but his face, and his heart swelled painfully with a huge hot desire to join with her until he was subsumed into the brightness of her being, never to be parted again. Their clothing had disappeared—the mind’s meager illusion of modesty far abandoned—and he slid slowly inside of her—so hot, tight, gasping with impatience and nerves in equal measure. A small sigh escaped his lips when he felt himself sheathed inside her fully, earning from her a guttural moan that drove the very last of the civilized veneer from his soul. He fucked her like a wild thing against the vine-laced stone of the ancient city, impelled to frenzy by her shouts of worship to the cloud-streaked sky of a long-ago world. She clutched at him desperately with her thighs, with her body, raking sharp-tipped fingers through his hair—only dimly aware that he wore the lean muscled body he’d last walked in thousands of years ago, his thick mane shorn close against the sides of his head but falling heavy down his back. As his thighs burned with the effort of rutting, his cock straining with unholy need for release—hours, years, perhaps a single long long heartbeat later; time was a nonsensical system of measurement in the Fade—Mirien came again. A gasp, a shiver, and then a sonic boom that flattened the surrounding landscape and drew Solas along with her into a relentless, magnificent earthquake of orgasm, his very essence pouring into hers in glad offering, making her burn more brightly than the sun.

She clung to him, panting, in the formless void, gasping a jumble of broken elven and human curses, overcome: “Fenedhis lasa _fuck_ , Solas’sa, what did you do to me? Fen'Harel, fuck _me_ …” she whispered breathlessly, clutching at his hair.

And the Dread Wolf, suddenly exhausted in the wake of the power he’d offered up unto the little woman in his arms, did something he had never done before in his long, long life. As her soft lips brushed his cheekbone, her voice murmuring in his ear, he lost his hold on cohesive form in the Fade and slipped away into a deep, dreamless mortal sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa, it's been two years since I last updated this? 'Bout time I get to work on finishing it, I suppose!

In the next weeks he was drugged, perpetually ecstatic with the wonder that was her. Days were not without danger, travel was not without its toil, but in the glow of the bright thing between them they were untouchable.

He was polite during daylight hours, studiously proper in his dealings with the Inquisitor. At night, in dreams, he did things to her that made her blush when she greeted him in the morning. He was acutely aware of her, physically, at all times waking, but remained aloof from her touch. They were granted little privacy in the field, and Solas found that he did not much mind the circumstance. Now that he had begun this dance, this doomed bright mad tangle of chemicals and sensation, he would savor it for as long as possible. The dizzying eternal instant when her breath caught, noticing him—a shimmering evanescent instance of bliss, the burning changing feeling for which mortal men risked life. He knew his restrained demeanor was lighting her afire. Casual touches between them burned on into the night. The way she looked at him across the battlefield—alive, breathless, victorious… He could feel the expression on his own face as he met her gaze over the smoldering ground, and knew she saw the dark delighted smile of the Wolf.

Their nightly meetings had fallen into a form of competition. Solas made her seek him out at first, refusing to make the chase too easy for his golden-eyed huntress. Some nights she found him quickly, coquettishly demanding reward for her prowess. Other nights she arrived frustrated—adorably so—and hungry for him after hours of searching. In either case he obliged her, glad to do to her as he’d wished throughout the day while watching her walk ahead of him.

He came to climax again in dream with Mirien, many times, but never again lost his hold as he had that first night she found him. For Mirien, it became somewhat of a contest of endurance. Some nights she managed to stay with him, dreaming on through increasingly explosive orgasms until her body’s reaction woke her or, exhausted, she fell into dreamless sleep. Other times she was near-instantly swamped with overwhelming excited sensation, razing dreamscapes with a blinding pulse, leaving colors in her wake. He kept her incoherent with pleasure one long stormy evening when they both slept well. Another night he chose to tease her slowly—had her near-begging for release before he gave her what she wanted, drowning them both in the tidal force of her pent-up desire. He had quite enjoyed that dream. Mirien was charmingly flustered in his waking presence for days following.

He was insatiably curious to ask how she—no mage—managed to navigate the Fade to find him at all, but he refrained from asking. It would come out in its own good time, as everything mortals did would. The longing to know, the longing to touch her…it was sweet. It occupied his mind near-entirely, and though he knew it would be brief, it seemed as if it would last forever. He could think of little else. She was like nothing else.

One day, journeying back to Skyhold, he found himself walking with the Iron Bull as the Inquisitor and that odd elf Sera ranged far ahead, laughter and shouted curses echoing back at intervals. He found himself smiling at the sound of her laughter when the huge qunari spoke.

“Solas,” he began in his rumbling voice, “satisfy my curiosity. I’m pretty sharp, but you’ve got me stumped here. When, exactly, did you start sleeping with the boss?”

“I beg your pardon?” he deflected. The Bull just looked at him. “I’ve done no such thing,” Solas proclaimed, falling back on the partial truth that served him so often.

“Heh. Okay. Whatever you say,” Bull said courteously, unbelieving. “I wasn’t criticizing. This…whatever’s going on with you two, I think it’s a good thing. Makes her lighter, happier. She’s sharp.”

“I fail to see how my dealings with the Inquisitor are any of your business.”

The Iron Bull turned and looked him dead in the eye, still walking. “Then you’re more short-sighted than I thought, elf. The boss is the only one with a chance of saving all our asses. From where I’m sitting, anything that affects her is my business.” He kept pace silently for a moment before speaking again. “Be a help, not a hindrance.”

 

********

 

Solas reflected on the Bull’s words over the next days at Skyhold, through a whirlwind of focused activity in preparation for a Grand Ball in Orlais, a chance to influence the fate of the nation. Mirien was surrounded and hounded with scarcely a moment to herself, and he managed to make himself scarce on those odd occasions. There was truth in the qunari’s assessment, and more besides: he wished to do right by her, to see her succeed. She needed to focus. Etiquette and dancing lessons, endless uniform fittings—the Inquisition’s advisory team was doing its utmost to civilize their sharp-edged wildling enough to pass as an urbane diplomat. No small feat, he assumed, overhearing her air her disgust with the formal attire chosen for the party to the dwarf, who laughed and laughed at her ire.

“After the ball,” Solas promised his irritated, beautiful Inquisitor when she at last cornered him in his study, demanding to know why he avoided her dreams. “Be patient, da’assan. You must finish your hunt before we may feast.”

Mirien was not naturally very patient, he had noticed, but she was tenacious, and so busy she had little time to be tempted. As for his part, he willingly turned his thoughts to other matters, denying himself that pleasure might be all the greater in celebration of victory.

And then the night itself arrived. He found himself outfitted in a snug velvet coat, identical to those worn by every member of the Inquisition’s envoy, secured with a sash of expensive silk. In a fit of whimsy he added his own headpiece to the ensemble, a replica of the one he’d last worn at Halamshiral millennia ago. No one else thought to question the helmet or inquire as to its provenance. Ambassador Montilyet glanced at him askance, once, but merely the slightest breath of power was required to ease her mind and focus her attention elsewhere.

Solas found himself enjoying the ball. These grand soirees where the wealthy and influential gathered to lie to one another…the very air was electric. One could feel the pressure of potential energy like a physical force, a subtle excited urge to eroticism, to violence, perhaps to both. It was an enjoyable sensation, and Mirien’s maneuvering amongst the humans an enjoyable sight.

For all her grumbling over preparation for the event, the Inquisitor was handling herself wonderfully. She was quick-witted, graceful, and able enough to feign interest and return question for question with inquisitive nobles, though such conversational artifice might run contrary to her own inclination. The outfit she bemoaned so did not flatter her coloring, it was true, but caused her to stand out sharply against a field of women wearing cumbersome gowns. In the military-inspired coat and trousers, Lady Lavellan gave an impression of efficiency and personal power; she looked as capable of killing as dancing. The Orlesians were charmed by her, and Solas could not but express his enthusiasm when, at length, she approached him to speak.

“I do adore the heady blend of power, intrigue, danger, and sex that permeates these events,” he confessed by way of greeting. Her eyes flashed at the word “sex,” her lovely mouth quirking up into a smile.

“You seem more comfortable at a Grand Ball than I might have expected.”

“I have seen countless such displays in my journeys in the Fade. The powerful have always been the same. Only the costumes change.” He allowed his gaze to linger on her lips as he reassured her that he was being treated well, that he’d had no opportunity to witness anything out of the ordinary. She shifted from foot to foot, seemingly reluctant to leave him.

“Do you have any interest in dancing?” she blurted.

“A great deal,” he answered honestly, amused. “Although dancing with an elven apostate would win you few favors with the court. Perhaps once our business here is done?” She grinned, conspiratorial, and he knew she was thinking of his promise from the week prior: After the ball.

“I’ll be back,” she announced.

“Hunt well,” he wished her, watching admiringly as she stalked off to do so.

Solas enjoyed himself hugely for the remainder of the evening. Mirien carved through the Orlesian nobility as if they were a tender cut of meat. She would disappear from sight, frequently, but always managed to re-materialize with a witty rejoinder whenever someone wondered aloud as to her whereabouts. He accompanied her for some of the snooping, mostly throwing up barriers to prevent the Iron Bull from becoming covered with blood as Mirien skewered Venatori warriors silently with her arrows. On returning to the ballroom she whirled no less a personage than the Duchess Florianne smoothly around the dance floor, earning gasps and stares from the crowd of onlookers. Solas sipped at the fiery liquor served by silent elves on golden trays while he watched her dance, dreaming of the scent of her hair, the way she would respond to his touch if it were him on the floor. He savored the sweet longing to press his lips to her skin, run his hands over her body—to touch her in the here and now rather than the Fade. He felt crazy, if pleasurably so. This mortal existence…it was a wonder any of them lived as long as they did.

He couldn’t find it in himself to be worried for Mirien’s safety here, in this place, despite her advisors’ warnings about the dangers of the Great Game. She was a wolf amongst these gaudy sheep. The evening just grew more entertaining as it stretched on, and the Inquisitor grew increasingly confident in her search.

“Boss?” the Iron Bull spoke up as they strode through the palace’s old royal apartments. (Drawn by the sound of screaming, Mirien had just casually shoved a would-be assassin out an open window, saving the life of an elven servant. She was moving on to the next door when the Ben-Hassrath spoke.) “That door there? That’s a bedroom. And it takes five of those ugly Halla statues to open it. Might be worth checking out.” Inside they discovered a nude man strapped down to a bed, deceived by the wiles of the empress. Solas knew he’d drunk too much of the expensive Orlesian liquor, then; he and the Tevinter mage laughed so hard they could barely breathe, clutching at each other for support until the Inquisitor’s sharp-tongued irritation brought them back to a semblance of normalcy. He was still chuckling when, in the next wing, the Duchess revealed herself to be a traitor to her nation and pawn of Corypheus, leaving them to be “destroyed” by a Fade rift that would barely have fazed Mirien during her first days exploring the Hinterlands. These humans and their hubris. They were no match for the elven woman who dared to stand face-to-face with Corypheus himself. She burst back into the Grand Ballroom and called the duchess to account for her poorly executed deception right before the entire court of shocked human nobles. Solas could feel a tangible sense of scandalized delight frissoning through the crowd as guards closed in on the defenseless duchess. Just as they began to titter, a deathly pall fell over the assembled audience, a sickening tearing sound: Mirien had snatched the decorative dagger she’d been allowed to wear as a representative of the Inquisition from its sheath. Before the assembled eyes of Orlais, Lady Lavellan gutted the silk-swathed betrayer right on the dance floor.

The mood of the crowd returned to a festive tenor once the leadership of the country’s various influential factions returned to announce a truce and immediate end to civil fighting. Drinks were passed round once again, the dance floor filled, and the entire affair took on a celebratory air. All around, he heard the humans chattering amongst one another, enraptured with the events of the evening. The scandal! The gossip! A very duchess of the kingdom brought low by an elf, did you see! Leader of that upstart Inquisition, somehow, and clever—a credit to her kind, I’m sure—but murder! Well what would you expect, but shocking, nonetheless…the Court Historian has already retreated to her apartments to begin writing…and so on, and so forth. She had indeed made a display of power on behalf of the Inquisition, but he wondered if it might not been better had she stayed her hand and allowed Orlais to mete justice unto its own. She frightened them, certainly. Not a one of them would dare to face her down individually. But on the whole, to the mob? The nuances of their favor seemed a subtler threat, but could potentially be even more deadly.

Now that they had seen her standing before them with noble blood on her hands, Mirien was a barbarian. She could be an ally, yes; they would praise her as she led them to victory! But afterward? Who was to say. Solas well remembered the fate of Shartan, and others. He had seen many rise, and seen many fall to the very crowds who had lifted them. The thought left a hollow ache in his breast. He wished to feel the light stupid joy he’d borrowed from drink earlier, but knew it was no good. More drink would plunge him into a dark melancholy. Better to make himself useful, as suggested by the Bull. Mirien had not reappeared in the ballroom since excusing herself after her impassioned speech.

He found her on a balcony alone, the Bull discreetly guarding her privacy from inside.

“It’s been a very long day,” she said

“Dance with me,” he offered in response.

She looked at him dubiously for an instant, then broke into smile. “I’d love to,” she said, and he drew her into his arms. They swayed gently in silence for a few moments, he marveling at the sinewy solidity of her waking form under his hands. “Solas?” she spoke at length.

“Da’assan?”

Mirien’s subdued demeanor slipped away slightly as she gazed up into his eyes, mirthful. She struggled not to smile as she peered up above his eyes to the top of his head. “That hat is hideous.”

He might have drained the very spirit from anyone else bold enough to speak to him so, but Mirien? Mirien’s disapproval was so charming that he could not help but bark out a surprised laugh. He pushed her into a twirl and, quick as a blink, ripped the hat off his head with his free hand and threw it from the balcony. Mirien pealed with laughter as, now hatless, he pulled her low into a dip. “What a brutal creature you are, Era’assan,” he chided, and then pressed his lips to hers before she could demand he remove any other articles of clothing.

 

********

 

Later in the Fade, he waited for some time, but Mirien never arrived in his dream as he anticipated. Breaking his custom, he determined to seek her out himself.

He found her in a facsimile of the Great Hall of the Winter Palace, the room even larger and the shadows darker. She was standing on a dais in the center of the enormous space, wearing the gown and crown of the Empress of Orlais. Dalish hunters joined with Orlesian nobles to prowl ominously around her perch, each and all glaring suspiciously at her. She held her head high, but the pulse in her throat fluttered. She looked desperate.

“Mirien, da’len! Banal enfenim!” he called, spirit forms scattering to allow him to stride through the crowd.

“Solas?” she cried. “Mir Solas’an en elgar?”

“I am no spirit,” he answered calmly.

“Solas, I am trapped in this dress. It’s so heavy, I can’t breathe, but they won’t let me take it off,” she gasped, eyes darting about like a trapped animal. She was indeed bound tight in a fierce mortal anxiety dream, the surrounding spirits lending weight to fettered sensation she felt. The Dread Wolf smiled gently, his heart swelling to see his indomitable huntress snared by such a mortal experience as a nightmare. ‘Help, not hinder,’ the Bull had said. A nightmare would do no lasting harm to the Inquisitor upon waking, but why should she suffer even in sleep when he was there to banish ill-feeling? Better to help her rest easy, perhaps, or at least that is what he would tell himself now.

“Mirien?” he said mildly.

“Lethallin?” she gasped.

“That dress is hideous.” He seized the bodice where it rested low on her cleavage and yanked. With a crack like thunder, the dress tore down the front, leaving her standing, bosom heaving, in her typical traveling hunting leathers. “Mirien,” he said amused, looking down at her new outfit, “take off your clothes.” Instead she threw her arms around him and clutched tight. Her clothing vanished as she turned her head to kiss his neck, and he too let the semblance of fabric covering his form fall into nothingness to feel the sweet press of her against him. The dais rose up higher and the spirits around them began to dance as they collapsed into the remains of the Empress’s blue gown. He was inside her without entering, effortless, and they moved slow and then more quickly, fucking atop the mess of a dress with intent concentration as the spirits celebrated. He noticed at one point that his long-shorn long hair returned momentarily as he howled his way long and loud into Mirien’s warmth, then his head was smooth as in waking life when she raked her nails over his scalp, across his back, his ass, his arms. He fucked her as he wanted to make love to her awake: deep, and long, and intimate. He wanted to feel her sweat on his skin, and he knew he was a man lost, even in dream. Only as she finally faded slowly into dreamless sleep did he allow himself release, ceding himself to the small mortal goddess he worshipped by night.

The spirits murmured happily at him as he knelt alone, naked on the dais. “Love, love, love, love,” they chanted reverently. He did not stop them. They were wise; they knew something of mortals and even of gods. They would never know the skin-bound sensation of waking mortal coitus, yet still they labeled quite accurately what they saw.

He would love her until he ceased to exist, and perhaps even beyond.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, but a sexy one! Buckle up, we got heartbreak coming up around the corner.

And finally it came to pass that love of the Marked Huntress and the Dread Wolf was consummated, though as is typical in the dealings of mortals, the circumstances of its occurrence defied all expectation.

They were traveling in the Exalted Plains when Solas received visitation in a dream. A spirit he had known long, benevolent and beautiful, needed his aid.

Along with the spirit known as Cole and the qunari, who loathed to let the Inquisitor face any danger in his absence, they journeyed northwest from the local Dalish camp to set matters aright. When they arrived, he saw that it would never be right. A small circle of fool-blasted human mages had summoned his friend, enslaved them, and twisted their nature beyond breaking point. Then, looking upon the horror they had created with their own monstrous entitlement, they were tormenting his beloved friend still further, attempting to kill the spirit they had corrupted.

Mirien acquiesced to his desperate pleas and targeted the binding circle rather than the “demon” inside, risking her own safety to deliver Wisdom unto peace. She looked on sympathetically as Solas made his final goodbye to the too-frail entity who had blessed the people of the Plains for millennia, then looked on impassively as he incinerated the cruel idiots who had willfully wrought such an abominable act of destruction. “I need to be alone,” he told her, then wandered south to dream deep in ruins.

 

********

 

He stayed apart from all company for weeks, lost purposefully in lovely parts of the Fade. When he woke to break his long fast and return to Skyhold, he found that Mirien had reached the comfort of Tarasyl'an Te'las first. She came outside the very walls to greet him.

“I’m glad you returned,” she said.

“You were a true friend. You did everything you could to help. I could hardly abandon you now,” he replied, bitterly aware of his own hypocrisy.

“The next time you have to mourn, you don’t need to be alone,” she said.

“It’s been so long since I could trust someone,” he offered honestly. Someone mortal, anyhow. And he would betray her eventually, he always would. But he could not be but what he was. “Mirien…do you have a moment?”

“Of course,” she responded, and followed him to the balcony of her own sumptuous chambers.

“What were you like before the anchor? Has it affected you? Changed you in any way? Your mind, your morals, your… spirit?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Ah.”

“Why do you ask?”

"You show a wisdom I have not seen since…since my deepest journeys into the ancient memories of the Fade,” he answered somewhat honestly. “You are not what I expected,” he added sincerely.

“What have I done that’s so surprising?”

What had she done that was so surprising? Everything, _everything_. And having seen her with a clan of her own people in the Plains, knowing now what she would do to protect a loved one… ”If the Dalish could raise someone with a spirit like yours… have I misjudged them?”

“I don’t hold the Dalish up as perfect, but we have something worth upholding. A memory of the old ways.”

“I suppose it must be. Most people act with so little understanding of the world, but not you.”

“So what does this mean, Solas?” she asked him, staring up at him with her enormous golden eyes.

“It means I have not forgotten your kiss.”

“Good,” she said, sidling closer. He shook his head and turned to leave, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Don’t go.”

“It would be kinder in the long run,” he insisted, knowing full well the awful truth of his words. “But losing you would…” _Would hurt worse than mortals’ imaginings of hellfire. Would rend my very soul with agony._ He put his hands on her waist and his mouth to her lips, and clutched the slender woman to his body with everything he had, while he could. “Ar lath ma, vhenan,” he whispered, and then he knew he would hold apart from her no longer, but give her his body, his love, and the pain that would come when they must part, when she found he had deceived her.

As when they danced on another balcony at Halamshiral, he swayed with her, spinning slowly until, blindly lost in one another, they crossed the threshold into her bedroom. Pulling her in front of the warmth of the fire, he confronted her garments for the first time in physical reality. The front of her shirt was lined entirely with buckles, and they did not just disappear as they might in dream. So he set to work opening them one by one, holding her eyes arrested with his own as he did so. Mirien giggled and attempted to glance away bashfully, but he refused to lift his gaze. He had neither the humor to laugh nor any anxiety, only a deep dark desire to savor this moment, to revel in the fact of her naked skin, to touch her body to body. He noticed the slight markings the clothing left on her torso, nonexistent in dreams, and swelled hard with hot desire. He pushed the fabric off her shoulders, down her arms to the floor, and immediately crushed her to him naked from the waist up, unable to wait to disrobe any further before kissing her again. Only when she started trying to climb him like a tree did he stop her and pull away to take off his belt, pendant, and shirt.

He wore no shoes, and might in another time have laughed to watch her hop on each foot to take off her boots, but had nothing but serious regard for her beautiful unique physicality, for each freckle he had never before seen. He had been so lonely for so long. Truly he had been lonely always. He had never felt more alive in his own skin than when he was touching hers. He had never loved anyone the way he revered this weird little woman with the markings of both a slave and a would-be god.

They eventually lost their pants on the way to the bed, where they fell entwined, kissing rubbing and sucking. He reached down and found her slickly wet, and bright red. “I’m bleeding,” she shrugged, and then grinned. “Na da’len.” _No baby_. Solas felt the wolf’s grin shine back in glad exultation for blood, blood to bind bodies and souls, blood to solemnize and bless their union, blood to prove she was real and alive in this plane of existence, blood to confirm she was no spirit. He licked his fingers long and slow, then slid into her, into the bloody beautiful warm clutching sensation of life.

The Dread Wolf and his Little Arrow fucked long and slow, intent, that night until they slept. Then they fucked, long and slow, intent, in their dreams until they awoke the following morn.


End file.
